Such a chance did not come in Stratton’s
way again. “If I had drunk that when Guest
came and interrupted me ­when was it?
Two years and more ago,” sighed Stratton one
night, “what an infinity of suffering I should
have been spared. All the hopes and disappointments
of that weary time, all the madness and despair of
the morning when that wretched convict came, all my
remorse, my battles with self, the struggles to conceal
my crime ­all ­all spared to me;
for I should have been asleep.”

A curious doubting smile crossed his
face slowly at these thoughts; and, resting his cheek
upon his hand, with the light full upon his face, he
gazed straight before him into vacancy.

“How do I know that?”
he thought. “Could I, a self-murderer,
assure myself that I should have sunk into oblivion
like that ­into a restful sleep, free from
the cares I had been too cowardly to meet and bear?
No, no, no; it was not to be. Thank God!
I was spared from that.”

“But mine has been a cruel lot,”
he continued; “stroke after stroke that would
have been kinder had they killed; for the misery has
not been mine alone. I could have borne it better
if it had been so. Poor Myra ­poor
girl! Yours has been a strange fate, too.”

And his thoughts were filled by her
pain-wrung features, and wild, appealing look last
time they met, when she had clung to him there, and
appealed to him to forget the past, for she would forgive
everything and take him to her heart and face with
him the whole world.

He shuddered.

“Poor, blind, loving heart!
ready to kiss the hand wet with her husband’s
blood.” It was too horrible ­too
terrible to bear.

He hid his face in his hands for a
few minutes, but grew calmer as he went on reviewing
the past; and from time to time a slight shiver ran
through him, as he thought of what he had done, and
the mad plan he had made to utterly conceal his crime
by fire.

“But that’s all past now,”
he said at last, with a sigh of relief. “That
horror has been taken from my load, and I will, as
a man, fight hard to meet whatever comes. Heaven
knows my innocence, and will find me strength to bear
it all; and, perhaps, some day, give me ­give
her forgetfulness and rest.”

He looked sharply up and listened,
for he fancied that he heard a sound; but a step faintly
beating on the paving outside seemed to accord with
it, and he went on musing again about Brettison, wondering
where he could be, and how he could contrive to keep
hidden away from him as he did.

“If we could only meet,”
he said, half aloud ­“only stand face
to face for one short hour, how different my future
might be.”

“No,” he said aloud, after
a thoughtful pause, “how can I say that? L’homme
propose et Dieu dispose. We are all bubbles
on the great stream of life.”

He half started from his chair, listening
again, for he felt convinced that he heard a sound
outside his doors, and going across, he opened them
softly and looked out, but the grim, ill-lit staircase
and the hall below were blank and silent, and satisfied
that he had been mistaken, he went back to his seat
to begin musing again, till once more there was a
faint sound, and as he listened he became conscious
of a strange, penetrating odour of burning.

Stratton’s face grew ghastly
with the sudden emotion that had attacked him, and
for a few moments he sat trembling, and unable to stir
from his seat.

“At last!” he said in
a whisper; “at last!” and, conscious that
the time had come for which he had longed and toiled
so hard, he felt that the opportunity was about to
slip away, for he would be unable to bear the encounter,
if not too much prostrated by his emotion to rise from
his seat.

It was only a trick of the nerves,
which passed off directly; and he rose then, firm
and determined, to cross gently to first one and then
the other door by his mantelpiece, where he stood,
silent and intent, breathing deeply.

Yes; there was no doubt now.
He was inhaling the penetrating, peculiar odour of
strong tobacco; and at last Brettison must have returned,
and be sitting there smoking his eastern water-pipe.

Stratton drew softly back, as if afraid
of being heard, though his steps were inaudible on
the thick carpet, and he stood there thinking.

“If I go,” he said to
himself, “he will not answer my knock.”
And feeling now that Brettison might have been back
before now unknown to him, he tried to think out some
plan by which he could get face to face with his friend.

A thought came directly, and it seemed
so childish in its simplicity that he smiled and was
ready to give it up; but it grew in strength and possibility
as he looked round and took from a table, where lay
quite a little heap that had been thrust into his
letter-box from time to time, four or five unopened
circulars and foolscap missives, whose appearance
told what they were; and armed with these he opened
his doors softly and passed out, drawing the outer
door to, and then stole on tiptoe downstairs and out
into the dimly lit square.

“He will not notice that it
is so late,” he said to himself, as he looked
up and saw just a faint gleam of light at Brettison’s
window, where the drawn curtain was not quite closed.

Stratton paused for a moment, and
drew a long breath before attempting to act the part
upon which he had decided. Then, going on some
twenty or thirty yards, he turned and walked back
with a heavy, decided, businesslike step, whistling
softly as he went, right to the entry, where, still
whistling, he ascended the stairs to his door, thrust
in and drew out a letter-packet thrice, making the
metal flap of the box rattle, gave a sharp double
knock, and then crossed the landing and went the few
steps, whistling still, along the passage to Brettison’s
door. Here he thrust in, one by one, three circulars,
with a good deal of noise, through the letter-flap,
gave the customary double knock, went on whistling
softly, and waited a moment or two; and then, as he
heard a faint sound within, gave another sharp double
rap, as a postman would who had a registered letter,
or a packet too big to pass through the slit.

The ruse was successful, and with
beating heart Stratton stood waiting a little on one
side, as there was the click and grate of the latch,
and the door was opened a little way.

That was enough. Quick as lightning,
Stratton seized and dragged it wide, to step in face
to face with Brettison, who started back in alarm
and was followed up by his friend, who closed both
doors carefully, and then stood gazing at the bent,
grey-headed, weak old man, who had shrunk back behind
the table, whereon the pipe stood burning slowly, while
the unshaded lamp showed a dozen or so of freshly
opened letters on the table, explaining their owner’s
visit there.

Stratton did not speak, but gazed
fiercely at the trembling old man, who looked wildly
round as if for some weapon to defend himself, but
shook his head sadly, and, with a weary smile, came
away from his place of defence.

“Your trick has succeeded, sir,”
he said quietly. “Seventy-two! Has
the time come? I ought not to fear it now.”

Stratton uttered a harsh sound ­half-gasp,
half-cry.

“Well,” continued Brettison,
who looked singularly aged and bent since they had
last stood face to face, “you have found me at
last.”

Stratton’s lips parted, but
no sound came; his emotion was too great.

“It will be an easy task,”
said Brettison, with a piteous look at Stratton.
“No sounds are heard outside these chambers ­not
even pistol shots.”

There was an intense bitterness in
those last words which made the young man shrink,
and as Brettison went on, “I shall not struggle
against my fate,” he uttered a cry of bitterness
and rage.

“Sit down!” he said fiercely.
“Why do you taunt me like this? You have
been here before from time to time. Why have
you hidden from me like this?”

“I have my reasons,” said
Brettison slowly. “Why have you come?”

“You ask me that!”

“Yes. You have hunted
me for months now, till my life has been worthless.
Have you come to take it now?”

“Why should I take your life?”

“To save your own. You believe I heard
or witnessed ­that.”

He paused before uttering the last
word, and pointed to the door on his left.

Stratton could not suppress a shudder;
but, as he saw the peculiar way in which the old man’s
eyes were fixed upon his, a feeling of resentment
arose within him, and his voice sounded strident and
harsh when he spoke again.

“I had no such thoughts,”
he said. “You know better, sir. Come,
let us understand one another. I am reckless
now.”

“Yes,” said Brettison coldly.

“Then, if you have any fear
for your life, you can call for help; that is, for
someone to be within call to protect you, for what
we have to say must be for our ears alone.”

Brettison did not answer for a few
moments, during which time he watched the other narrowly.

“I am not afraid, Malcolm,”
he said; and he seated himself calmly in his chair.
Then, motioning to another, he waited until Stratton
was seated.

“Yes,” he said quietly,
“I have been here from time to time to get my
letters.”

“Why have you hidden yourself
away?” cried Stratton fiercely.

“Ah! Why?” said
Brettison, gazing at him thoughtfully from beneath
his thick, grey eyebrows. “You want a
reason? Well, I am old and independent, with
a liking to do what I please. Malcolm Stratton,
I am not answerable to any man for my actions.”

Stratton started up, and took a turn
to and fro in the dusty room before throwing himself
again in his chair, while the old man quietly took
the long, snake like tube of his pipe in hand, examined
the bowl to find it still alight, began to smoke with
all the gravity of a Mussulman, and the tobacco once
more began to scent the air of the silent place.

Stratton’s lips parted again
and again, but no words would come. In his wild
excitement and dread of what he knew he must learn,
he could not frame the questions he panted to ask
in this crisis of his life, and at last it was with
a cry of rage as much as appeal that he said:

“Man, man, am I to be tortured
always? Why don’t you speak?”

“You have hunted me from place
to place, Malcolm Stratton, in your desperation to
find out that which I felt you had better not know;
and now you have found me ­brought me to
bay ­I wait for you to question me.”

“Yes, yes,” said Stratton
hoarsely; and, with a hasty gesture, as he clapped
his hand to his throat, “I will speak ­directly.”

He rose again and paced the room,
and it was while at the far end that he said in a
low voice:

“Yes; you know all.”

“All.”

“Tell me, then ­why have you done
this? Stop! I am right ­it was
you.”

“You are right; it was I,”
said Brettison, smoking calmly, as if they were discoursing
upon some trivial matter instead of a case of life
and death ­of the horror that had blasted
a sanguine man’s life, and made him prematurely
old.

“Tell me, then; how could you ­how
could you dare? Why did you act the spy upon
my actions?”

The old man rose quickly from his
chair, brought his hand down heavily upon the table,
and leaned forward to gaze in Stratton’s eyes.

“Answer me first, boy.
Me ­the man who loved you and felt toward
you as if you were a son! Why did you not come
to me for help and counsel when you stood in danger ­in
peril of your life?”

The gentle, mild face of the old botanist
was stern and judicial now, his tone of voice full
of reproof. It was the judge speaking, and not
the mild old friend.

“Did you think me ­because
I passed my life trifling, as some call it, with flowers,
but, as I know it to be, making myself wiser in the
works of my great Creator ­did you think
me, I say, so weak and helpless a creature that I
could not counsel ­so cowardly and wanting
in strength of mind and faith in you, that I would
not have stood by you as a father should stand by
his son?”

Stratton groaned.

“Forgive me,” he said feebly; “I
was half-mad.”

“Yes.”

“How could I, crushed by the
horror of having taken a fellow-creature’s life,
cursed by the knowledge that this man was ­But
you cannot know that.”

“Take it, boy, that I know everything,”
said the old man, resuming his seat.

“Then have some pity on me.”

“Pity for your folly? Yes.”

“Folly! You are right.
I will take it that you know everything, and speak
out now. Brettison ­”

He paused ­he could not
speak. But by a mighty effort he mastered his
emotion.

“Now think, and find some excuse
for me. I was in my room there, elate almost
beyond a man’s power to imagine; in another hour
the woman whom I had idolised for years was to be
my wife. Recollect that, two years before, my
hopes had been dashed to the ground, and I had passed
through a time of anguish that almost unhinged my
brain, so great was my despair.”

“Yes,” said Brettison, “I recall
all that.”

“Then that man came, and I was
face to face with the knowledge that once more my
hopes were crushed, and ­he fell.”

Stratton ceased speaking, and sat
gazing wildly before him into the past.

It was in a husky whisper that he resumed:

“I stood there, Brettison, mad
with horror, distraught with the knowledge that I
was the murderer of her husband ­that my
hand, wet with his blood, could never again clasp
hers, even though I had made her free.”

The old man bent his head; and, gathering
strength of mind and speech, now that he was at last
speaking out openly in his defence, Stratton went
on:

“It was horrible ­horrible!
There it is, all back again before my eyes, and I
feel again the stabbing, sickening pain of the bullet
wound which scored my shoulder, mingled with the far
worse agony of my brain. I had killed her husband ­the
escaped convict; and, above the feeling that all was
over now, that my future was blasted, came the knowledge
that, as soon as I called for help, as soon as the
police investigated the matter, my life was not worth
a month’s purchase. For what was my defence?”

Brettison satin silence, smoking calmly.

“That this man had made his
existence known to me, shown by his presence that
his supposed death was a shadow ­that, after
his desperate plunge into the sea, he had managed
to swim ashore and remain in hiding; the dark night’s
work and the belief that he had fallen shot, being
his cloak; and the search for the body of a convict
soon being at an end. You see all this?”

Brettison bowed his head.

“Think, then, of my position;
put yourself in my place. What jury ­what
judge would believe my story that it was an accident?
It seemed to me too plain. The world would
say that I slew him in my disappointment and despair.
Yes, I know they might have called it manslaughter,
but I must have taken his place ­a convict
in my turn.”

“You thought that?”

“Yes, I thought that ­I
think it now. I could not ­I dared
not speak. Everything was against me, and in
my horror temptation came.”

Brettison looked at him sharply.

“The hope was so pitiful, so
faint, so weak, Brettison; but still it would linger
in my maddened brain that some day in the future ­after
years, maybe, of expiation of the deed ­I
might, perhaps, approach her once again. I thought
so then. The secret would be between me and my
Maker, and in his good time he might say to my heart:
`It is enough. You have suffered all these years.
Your sin is condoned ­your punishment is
at an end.’ I tell you I thought all that,
and in my madness I dared not let the thing be known.
She would know it, too, and if she did I felt that
hope would be dead indeed, and that I had, too, better
die.”

Stratton ceased speaking, and let
his head fall upon his hand.

“Put yourself in my place, I
say. Think of yourself as being once more young
and strong ­the lover of one whom, in a few
short hours, you would have clasped as your wife,
and then try and find excuse for my mad action ­for
I know now that it was mad, indeed.”

“Yes, mad indeed,” muttered Brettison.

“Well, I need say no more.
You know so much, you must know the rest. They
came to me, fearing I had been killed ­robbed
and murdered. They found me at last, when I
was forced to admit them, looking, I suppose, a maniac;
for I felt one then, compelled to face them, and hear
the old man’s reproaches, in horror lest they
should discover the wretched convict lying dead, and
no word to say in my defence. Nature could bear
no more. My wound robbed me of all power to act,
and I fainted ­to come to, fearing that
all was discovered; but their imaginations had led
them astray. They had found my wound and the
pistol. It was an attempt at suicide.
Poor Guest recalled the first ­I do not wonder.
And they went away at last, looking upon me as a
vile betrayer of the woman I loved, and sought in
their minds for the reason of my despair, and the cowardly
act I had attempted to escape her father’s wrath.
Brettison, old friend, I make no excuses to you now;
but was I not sorely tried? Surely, few men in
our generation have stood in such a dilemma.
Can you feel surprised that, stricken from my balance
as a man ­a sane and thoughtful man ­I
should have acted as I did, and dug for myself a pit
of such purgatory as makes me feel now, as I sit here
making my confession, how could I have gone through
so terrible a crisis and yet be here alive, and able
to think and speak like a suffering man.”

The silence in the room was terrible
for what seemed an age before Brettison stretched
out his trembling hand and took that of the man before
him.

“Hah!”

Malcolm Stratton’s low cry.
It was that of a man who had long battled with the
waves of a great storm, and who had at last found something
to which he could cling.

There was another long and painful
pause before Stratton spoke again, and then he slowly
withdrew his hand.

“No,” he said; “we
must never clasp hands again. I must go on to
the end a pariah among my kind.”

Brettison shook his head.

“I have put myself in your place
often,” he said slowly, “and I have felt
that I might have acted much the same.”

Stratton looked at him eagerly.

“Yes; my great fault in you is that you should
not have trusted me.”

There was again a long silence before Stratton spoke.

“I felt that I was alone in
the world to fight my own battle with all my strength,”
he said wearily.

“And that strength was so much
weakness, boy. Mine, weak as it is, has proved
stronger far.”

Stratton looked at him wonderingly.

“Yes; how much agony you might
have been spared, perhaps, if you had come to me.
But I don’t know ­I don’t know.
You acted as you thought best; I only did the same,
and, not knowing all your thoughts, I fear that I
have erred.”

Stratton sat thinking for a few moments,
and then, raising his eyes:

“I have told you all. It is your turn
now.”

Brettison bowed his head.

“Yes,” he said, “it is better that
I should speak and tell you.”

But he was silent for some time first,
sitting back with the tips of his fingers joined,
as if collecting his thoughts.

“You remember that morning ­how I
came to say good-bye?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I started, and then found that
I had forgotten my lens. I hurried back, and
had just entered my room when I heard voices plainly
in yours. My book-closet door was open, that
of your bath room must have been ajar. I did
not want to hear, but the angry tones startled me,
and the words grew so fierce ­you neither
of you thought of how you raised your voices in your
excitement ­that I became alarmed, and was
about to hurry round to your room, when a few words
came to my ears quite plainly, and, in spite of its
being dishonourable, I, in my dread that you were in
danger, hurried into the book-closet and was drawn
to the thin, loose panel at the end.

“There I was enchained; I could
not retreat, for I heard so much of the piteous position
in which you were placed. My mind filled in the
blanks, and I grasped all.

“I need not repeat all you know ­only
tell you that, unable to master my curiosity, I placed
my eye to one of the cracks in the old panelling,
and could see the man’s face ­her husband’s
features ­and I saw him glance again and
again at the money, and felt that he meant to have
it, though you seemed ignorant of the fact; and, dreading
violence, I drew back to go for help. But I
could not leave. It meant a terrible expose
and untold horror for your promised wife. I tell
you I could not stir, and the fact of my being a miserable
eavesdropper died out in the terrible climax you had
reached.”

Brettison paused to wipe his brow,
wet with a dew begotten by the agony of his recollections,
before he continued:

“I stayed there then, and watched
and listened, almost as near as if I had been a participator
in the little life drama which ensued. There,
I was with you in it all, boy ­swayed by
your emotions, but ready to cry out upon you angrily
when I saw you ready to listen to the wretch’s
miserable proposals, and as proud when I saw your determination
to sacrifice your desires and make a bold stand against
what, for your gratification, must have meant finally
a perfect hell for the woman you loved. Then,
in the midst of my excitement, there came the final
struggle, as you nobly determined to give the scoundrel
up to the fate he deserved so well. It was as
sudden to me as it was horrible. I saw the flash
of the shot, and felt a pang of physical pain, as,
through the smoke, I dimly saw you stagger.
Then, while I stood there paralysed, I saw you fly
at him as he raised his pistol to fire again, the struggle
for the weapon, which you struck up as he drew the
trigger.”

“Yes,” said Stratton,
“I struck up the pistol as he drew the trigger;
but who would believe ­who would believe?”

“And then I saw him reel and
fall, and there before me he lay, with the blood slowly
staining the carpet, on the spot where I had so often
sat.”

He wiped his brow again, while Stratton
rested his elbows on the table and buried his face
in his hands, as if to hide from his gaze the scene
his friend conjured up from the past.

“Malcolm Stratton,” continued
the old man, rising to lay his hand upon the other’s
head, “you were to me as a son. As a father
loves the boy born unto him, I swear I felt toward
you. I looked upon you as the son of my childless
old age, and I was standing there gazing at you, face
to face with the horror of that scene, while, with
crushing weight, there came upon me the knowledge
that, come what might, I must summon help. That
help meant the police; and, in imagination, I saw myself
sending you to the dock, where you would perhaps,
from the force of the circumstances ­as
you have told me you might ­stand in peril
of your life. But still I felt that there was
nothing otherwise that could be done; and, slowly
shrinking back, I was on my way to perform this act
of duty, when I heard a low, deep groan. That
drew me back, and, looking into your room once more,
a mist rose between me and the scene, my senses reeled,
and I slowly sank down, fainting, on the floor.”

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